IBM’s Podcasting Free-for-all Shows the Benefits of Trusting Employees

To enable company-wide creation of audio and video podcasts, IBM’s corporate communications team set up a "media library" with easy-to-use tools for employees.

The result has been impressive, with employees from all over the world experimenting with the new medium.

George Faulkner describes the reasons for encouraging internal podcasting, including the time zone neutral nature of podcasts, which allow others to listen or watch when it’s convenient.

The company’s culture of experimentation and trust is an important one. Without it, employees wouldn’t feel free to test the boundaries of internal communication.

Paul Gillin reports on Faulkner’s Podcamp Boston talk:

Faulkner said the first podcast he produced was a battle of the bands, featuring groups made up of IBM employees. The show was enormously popular and ran for 35 weeks. IBMers lobbied for an opportunity to be featured on the program. "That was the moment I realized this wasn’t about knowledge-sharing; it was about community-building." Faulkner said.

The initiative has spread virally within IBM. "We never made an internal announcement that the blogging and podcasting platforms existed,” he said.

The lesson for all of us is that IBM built a culture of trust and authenticity before opening the floodgates. And they provided support without dictating precisely how employees should use the new tools.

People are capable of tremendous creativity and knowledge-sharing, but you have to put in place the fundamentals to encourage and enable them. Once you’ve taught them "how to fish," you can let them do their own communicating, rather than trying to cram all employee communications into a tightly controlled format.

Tags: ibm, podcasting, george faulkner, paul gillin, empowerment, business, corporate, corporations, large companies, tools